Tim Burrowes, publisher of Mumbrella, writes:

Back in 2018 Mumbrella was sued for defamation. We couldn’t write about it at the time, but now we can.

For the first time in more than seven years, the piece that attracted the writ is republished below.

The article was a piece of analysis, written by our then news editor Paul Wallbank, predicting that the planned float of Trimantium Growth Ops would be a disaster. Spoiler: it was, and it continues to be. This week, dozens more people lost their jobs with the company, these days known merely as Growthops, moving into administration.

As a case study in defamation law being used to chill legitimate journalism, this one is a doozy.

Published before the planned float of TGO, the article pointed out the conflicts of interest and flawed business model behind the roll-up.

Those behind the plan were desperate to lock in participants in the float, and while the article remained online, that was a barrier.

We stood our ground. Eventually, as legal threats turned into an actual writ, it began to look like the case might go all the way to trial.

There was, however, a weakness in our legal case (no matter how careful you are with a news story, there almost always is a flaw, by the way). We had linked to an article published by Fairfax mastheads that the people behind the float claimed was defamatory. We had not removed the link in a timely enough fashion, and were now potentially liable for the allegations in that article too. Fairfax was unhelpful at the time in letting us know the status of the own defence of their article.

When Team Growthops offered to settle without costs so long as we removed our article, our insurer told us that if we wanted to continue our defence, we would be on our own. We were on the hook for tens of thousands of dollars. The decision was taken to settle.

The article came down, and the float went ahead, with investors losing millions of dollars. In the months and years that followed, the company reported a series of losses and was quickly removed from the ASX.

An insolvency note filed with ASIC yesterday lists 19 Growthops companies that have been placed in voluntary liquidation, including AJF Partnership, JTribe, Voodoo Creative and all the APD businesses.

Now, for the record, we republish Paul Wallbank’s original article below.

January 4, 2018

When it was announced back in November that AJF Partnership and several smaller agencies, would be rolled together for a float on the ASX by the previously low-profile Trimantium GrowthOps, it looked like a new chapter for one of Australia’s biggest independent agencies.

But a closer look at the prospectus reveals a web of conflicts that make me question whether the venture will be successful, even in the increasingly unlikely event that a float – which has already been delayed twice – goes ahead.

The structure of the deal would see AJF Partnership, creative agency Khemistry, branding........

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